The Blackboard Jungle

days spent beating back the seeds of doubt

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

I'm apt to drown beneath a sea of pointless administrative tasks.

I've just attempted to measure how many inches of random, unimportant pieces of paper wash over my desk today. Inches wouldn't cut it.

Three feet.

Three feet of memos, of lists to be filled in, of data requests, worksheets, memos, lists, instructions and circulars. Of ocean detritus, riming the room with their foamy useless muck.

They've piled up like bloated corpses, all within the last three days.

Given that my central occupation is to teach, is contact time with children, and the planning and assessment of progress therein ... why does this extra flurry of white leaves of broken, fallen nothingness appear? What possible justification can there be for three feet of extra tasks, of trailing wake, of pettifogging, on top of the job I do equally well without?

I'm extremely tempted to bin it all, and see if anything comes of it. Dump the lot back in the formless deep from whence it came.
Even that one single important piece of A4 that will be hidden somewhere between the folds.